If there’s one thing we know about Guido Pella is that he is a guy who never bites his tongue. The Argentine tennis player, who rests quietly in his country before starting the preseason for 2022, went through ESPN and he reflected on a lot of subjects with the analytical look that characterizes him. The truth is that since the arrival of the pandemic, things have not been easy for him: this year he managed to add some victories that made him regain some confidence, but in certain passages he came to admit that he needed to take a break from tennis, that he was not happy playing. On this occasion, he had hair and signs of his experience in the first tournament after the break, the last US Open 2020, in addition to talking about Novak Djokovic, the Big Three or the enormous difficulty of the circuit. A talk with absolutely unmissable passages.
Djokovic, the best
“He is better than Federer and Nadal. Globally, he is better. I am a fan of Federer, but he tennis is more complete … and has a superior head. He is the only player, that I remember, or one of the few athletes, He says he wants the pressure, that he is the bank. He tells himself that he is going to be number one, that he has to be number one, and he is not interested in anything else. He is for the records. Besides, it is not that he sells smoke: he says it and he does it. “
“IT’S THE MOST COMPLETE OF ALL”, Guido Pella’s reference to Novak Djokovic, the world’s number 1.#ESPNShow #GuidoPellaenESPNShow
Watch it, live -> https://t.co/j4mBYrb203 pic.twitter.com/SxGr2KZGH7
— ESPN Show (@ESPNShow) November 13, 2021
What happened in the US Open final and his analysis of Medvedev
“In the final of the US Open he clearly felt mental fatigue on his part, in the semifinals he had to fight against Zverev in a terrible way, and he is obviously human, in addition to Medvedev being number two in the world for quite some time and probably the worst player that could have touched him. Medvedev has a huge advantage: he serves 220 all the serves and if you propose a long game, he is able to put 20 balls in a row without anything happening. And if he has to attack, he attacks ” .
Eagerness to overcome the Big Three
“Djokovic, Federer and Nadal are people who all the time seek to improve things. I have spoken a lot with Vajda, he is the one with whom I have the most relationship on his team, and he told me that the right hand did not come out, it is the blow that most It costs. Now you see the right … and it has a right. The three are so animal that they constantly tell themselves that they must be better, and they improve. They do not think that if they hit the right well, they are looking for ways to always improve “.
The circuit meat grinder
“Happiness in tennis lasts five seconds. The time to greet the net and greet people. I have grounds to say this, several things happen: you win a game and you play the next day. What are you going to say? “Mom, I beat # 20 in the world, I’m happy”. You do that, the next day they take you 6-0 and 6-0. You cannot afford to celebrate excessively, because the body knows it and feels it. When you win a game and have another one left, the body is in permanent tension until the tournament ends. The hardest thing of all is that when you lose, you feel like you never come out again. In your career you feel that the lows last for years: that’s why when you start to have good feelings, you should try to hold on to what led you to that. For example: I like to drink two glasses of water before going to train. If I feel good with that, even if it is useless … it works for you, deep down. You have to hold on to the little things that give you confidence, because the circuit is a meat grinder, since it is played every week and it is either you or your rival. There are no others, you can’t say that if you can’t play, you ask for change. “
The quarantine who lived at the 2020 US Open
“The COVID started. Nobody knew anything, we disinfected things every two by three. At that time New York was almost closed. The first day we did the swab, we all tested negative, but the second day I get a message at 7 a.m. the morning: my coach tested positive for COVID. It was the first tournament after the pandemic, I had just been doing a 10-week preseason to adapt. At that moment I began to realize how bad the system works, how they are doing holding hands so that it goes towards the interest of certain people There was a very clear rule: if you do not share a room with your coach and he tests positive, you were “free”, although they made you more swabs.
I slept alone, but they locked me up anyway. The best of all? A week later, a French man tested positive and they did not lock up the entire French entourage, but left them in a kind of bubble and let them play. I was locked up in a room for 15 days. They threw me a bike and some dumbbells. There were police officers outside the room, in case I wanted to escape; also a volunteer, 24 hours next to my door, gave me food. I was really bad, really bad. It was not just the injustice of everything: it was that I had trained 10 weeks for a Grand Slam, I missed a tournament and they made me compete the next day after coming out of quarantine. At five sets, with forty degrees, after being in a room for 15 days. In Australia it was worse: Pablo Cuevas was taken to another hotel for minimally opening a door. It was crazy”.
.
